Home is the Sound of the Sea on the Rocks
by Insomniac Owl
Summary: If Asha was real, she would have come for him by now.


**Home is the Sound of the Sea on the Rocks**

_By Insomniac Owl_

* * *

A/N: written for a prompt at asoiafkinkmeme on Livejournal. 'Theon keeps mentioning Asha. Ramsay is sick of hearing about her so he decides to either gaslight and manipulate Theon into thinking Asha is dead or that he made her up to cope with being tortured.'

* * *

"I didn't know you had a sister," Ramsay says. He traces an absent-minded finger down Theon's side, ragged nail bumping lightly over his ribs. Theon doesn't flinch. He must not flinch. He is filthy, and he is missing teeth and a toe but the finger on his ribs does not hurt. Not yet. He must not flinch.

"Are you sure?" Ramsay asks.

Theon's mouth opens. Closes. "W- what?" The finger stops. "That Asha - That I have a sister?"

Ramsay smiles, as though he's heard an amusing joke. "Asha." He draws the vowels out, low and soft. "It's a lovely name, I'll give you that. No one ever mentions her when they talk about the Iron Islands, though. Strange, isn't it? Daughter of Balon Greyjoy and you're the first person who's ever said her name."

"It's not," Theon says. "She doesn't - she isn't - _I'm _heir to the Iron Islands, not her."

Not Asha. Asha with her battle axe, who let him kiss her when he thought she was a serving girl. I'll make you my salt wife, he'd whispered as they rode, one hand down her pants and the other on the reins. She'd laughed, and he hadn't known why.

Ramsay laughs. "I _know_. And that's why it's odd. Balon's daughter should be marrying someone, securing alliances, that sort of thing."

"Asha - she's different. The Iron Islands are different."

"But you have to admit it's strange, that I haven't heard of her," Ramsay says. He reaches Theon's last rib, smiles. "Are you sure?"

"_Yes_," Theon hisses. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say, what Ramsay wants from him. His finger steadies over Theon's rib, not hurting, just pressing in a little, and that is what is strange, not Asha.

Ramsay chuckles, smile sickle-sharp in the torchlight. "If you say so."

* * *

They leave him in a darkness as vast and lonely as the sea at night. He cannot see the walls, the floor, the bars on what he now knows is a cell. He cannot see his hands, tied at the wrist, or his feet, tied at the ankles. The room could be leagues wide, or he could be in a box at the bottom of the ocean and he wouldn't know it. During these long, aching hours there is not much to think about other than pain, and what to say to avoid it - but sometimes he thinks of Asha.

She would have made them kill her, Theon thinks. She would have died rather than give up secrets he shouted at the top of his lungs. Ramsay never needed to pick up a knife because Theon has flayed himself, opened his chest and given Ramsay his beating heart, all his mistakes and fears and desires. I did it to make my father proud, he had told him. I was their prisoner and I hated them and I wanted them to suffer. I wanted to go home.

Home was his father, his mother, was Asha and the sound of the sea on the rocks.

What is dead may never die, he thinks, dry-mouthed and half delirious with hunger. He is the Kraken's son. Asha will come for him. She must.

The door opens, then, casting a triangle of light across the floor. The room is only about ten feet wide; not as wide or small as he'd thought. An arm, a shoulder, then Ramsay's face, serious and calm, follows the light in.

"Please," Theon says.

"Can't sleep?" Ramsay's voice is kind, but Theon knows better now than to trust kindness in this place. "I thought I'd come check on you, see if you needed anything. Water? Food?"

"Please."

"I did manage to get hold of a little water for you. Here." He comes forward with a small jug, tilts it against Theon's mouth. Theon expects piss, or ditchwater, but it is clean and cold so he swallows and swallows until the jar is empty.

"Asha is coming for me," he whispers.

Something flickers in Ramsay's face as he steps away, but he doesn't say anything. Just sets the jug down, pulls his lip between his teeth. Theon knows that look. It comes just before Ramsay smiles – a grin, really, ear-to-ear – before he pulls out his flaying knife. But he doesn't reach for the knife.

"You know," Ramsay says, "I asked about that sister of yours. Do you know what they told me? They said you don't have a sister. That you're an only child." When he turns to face Theon, his face is infinitely gentle. "It helps to think there's someone out there who cares for you, I know. But you are heir to the Iron Islands, and you are your father's only child."

"No," Theon says. "I'm not." The water has loosened his throat, and his voice sounds almost strong. He coughs, twists uselessly against the ropes. "I have – I have a sister. Her name is Asha. She taught me how to throw a knife."

"You don't."

Theon nods.

"You don't," Ramsay says again, and there is no anger in his face, just sadness. He steps forward, takes Theon's face in both hands. His palms are rough with callouses, but he has all ten fingers and his skin is warm. "Theon, you don't."

* * *

He has eight toes and – Theon runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth, carefully, because some have splintered and one has rotted clean away - nineteen teeth.

It is very lonely in the dark. When he sleeps he dreams, but sometimes he dreams when he is awake, too, his body a heavy weight in the darkness, a bag of blood and bones that is of no use to him at all. In his dreams Asha comes to save him. She cuts his bonds, eases him up onto a horse behind her, wraps his arms around her waist. Her hair is gritty with sea salt, and her body strong and warm. "Thank you," Theon whispers, but she just laughs.

She feels so far away, like the sight of land through thick sea fog. How can there be anything outside these four stone walls? How can there be anything but pain and darkness and Ramsay, waiting for his next visit? Pike seems like a dream - so does Winterfell, and all that happened there. He killed those boys there. The little Stark lords. And if Ramsay is right about that, maybe he is right about other things as well.

"You don't have a sister," Ramsay says.

"That's not true," he whispers. But if Asha was real she would have come for him by now.

Ramsay lays the edge of his knife against Theon's thumb. Please, Theon thinks. Please don't. He can't lose a thumb. He can pull a bow with eight fingers, but not without his thumb.

Ramsay smiles.

* * *

"Do you remember," Ramsay asks, "when you begged me to cut off your thumb?"

Theon breathes.

"Answer me."

"I don't. You just cut it off."

"Remember how you begged me to cut off your little finger?" Ramsay prods at the stump, his smile shark-toothed when Theon yelps. "It was just the same."

And Ramsay is right. Ramsay is always right. About the Stark boys, about escaping, about how kind he is, only removing the parts of Theon that he doesn't need. He didn't need his thumb. Ramsay was right. There are no bows to pull here. He's right.

* * *

Theon has five fingers – two on his right hand, three on his left – seven toes, and ten teeth. Yesterday Ramsay only took his second smallest toe. It was a good day.

"So tell me," Ramsay says, breath hot against his face. "Do you have a sister?"

Asha, Theon thinks. That's what I called her. Thinking she was real made me hope, but there's no point in having hope here. Ramsay is right. His throat is dry; Ramsay brings him water. It's a little dirty, but Ramsay is so kind to bring him anything at all.

"No," he says.

Ramsay smiles.


End file.
